


Our Fair Dominion

by Tassledown



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Brief implication of underage, British Empire!England not Nice!England, Coercian, Drug Use, Human Names Used, Implied/Referenced abusive Turkey, M/M, Mindscrew, References to (Temporary) deaths, Verbal Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-19
Updated: 2019-01-19
Packaged: 2019-10-12 14:11:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,272
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17469083
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tassledown/pseuds/Tassledown
Summary: 'In the mirror, he didn't look like himself.'Mathieu can take on the responsibility of the greater majority of colonial Britain - not because of his own identity, but that of his people - the British Canadian identification with Empire. There's a certain appeal, to being so powerful and a great deal more dread and horror it brings with it. Arthur's expectations for his colonial hand are unpleasant at best.After the seizure of Egypt, to secure the Suez Canal, Mathieu has both to walk into another Empire's lands while unwelcome, and after that, report back to Arthur, his Empire and the source of the giddy levels of strength he belongs to when he lets himself expand so far in his service.





	Our Fair Dominion

**Author's Note:**

> This was written after a discussion with a couple friends about the way Canada is perceived now, and the way its actually acted in history (and at present.) The idea - 'what if Mattie was Arthur's enforcer' - led to this. As a British Canadian, it was deeply tempting self-indulgent horror.
> 
> Characterization for the situation with Egypt is the same as my other extant Turkey fics if you want more detail on that. I haven't yet written anything about Arthur's backstory.
> 
> Title taken from the lyrics of "The Maple Leaf Forever", one of the older versions.

‘ _ Go retrieve Egypt _ ,’ England said, as though that was going to be simple. Mathieu swore and changed his clothes, from something comfortable and practical for the northern forests to something ridiculous but practical.

Sort of. At least it was cotton and not leather. Given he was travelling to the Mediterranean, that  _ was _ necessary.

In the mirror, he didn’t look like himself. The man who stared back looked... older. Severe, with his hair pulled tightly back in a braid along his skull, tucked under a round hat to keep off the sun. Where he was going the colour of his skin would look normal, the result of long days outside, not a sign of his race. His hair was bleached to a lighter brown, frizzing out of its containment already.

A suit was not clothing he would choose for a battle but he wasn’t going to fight, he was going as an arm of the British Empire. If he got into a physical fight, he hadn’t done his job right.

This worked perhaps for some of the real officials who were dealing with rational actors; he wasn’t so sure how well it was going to work on Osmanli himself when he showed up to take his legal wife.

Still, better to assume he was rational until proven otherwise. 

Mathieu closed his eyes and pictured the idea of a place – the port of Alexandria, an office of the current administrator of the protectorate. When slowly he began to picture an actual man, a person filling that space, he walked from his bedroom to the empty floor across the desk from him.

The man – he wasn’t interested in his name, he didn’t  _ want _ to know it, because then this would feel more real and he tried very hard to avoid that whenever he did Arthur's dirty work – startled at his appearance, then abruptly stood and bowed to him, overwhelmed by his aura before Mathieu had the chance to say a word.

“Sir! What is the occasion?”

“I need a boat to Istanbul. I’m here to collect your Nation from the Empire.”

It helped, that people who felt like they belonged to him never questioned him; the general directed him to the clerk at port with a note, and Mattie was grateful they didn’t have to redirect a boat for his sake; one was leaving in the next hour.

He could have simply pictured Egypt and walked into his room in Istanbul, but that would have been a poor choice for a few reasons, not least of which was that Osmanli didn’t want him there. The second reason was that he didn't think Egypt would want to  _ leave _ , much less for Britain’s care – although the fact that Arthur had sent him, not gone himself, implied he had little personal interest in Egypt.

Not that he was sure he wanted to explain that distinction. Arthur’s disinterest wasn’t  _ that _ much of an improvement.

IIII

Osmanli’s house was an ancient mansion in the oldest part of the city, from when it had been the center of the Byzantine Empire. It was a beautiful piece of property and Mathieu had very little idea how he was going to find anything inside.

He took a minute to wait outside the gates, trying to fall deeper into that place in his mind where he tucked away that... feeling of British Empire, the citizens who made it run and that tied him to England tighter and tighter every time he opened it up. But doing so, he could feel his aura rising with it – he wasn’t a minor settlement in a barely tamed land, but the extended reach of the new Empire on which the Sun Never Set, one for whom any corner of the world was never far from a place he could call home. Here, he could feel Cyprus and Egypt, troops and citizens as distant bright specks. Osmanli swam into his senses as a vague echo somewhere within his extended range, merely a signal of there - fortunately, a ‘there’ that was not at home today - and, some distance to his left on the property before him, a Nation who felt like his, their mind dull with sleep.

Standing here wasn’t going to miraculously make his manners improve. He reached out, back to Egypt and found... Sir Garnet Wolseley, Baron of Cairo; yes that was the general's name and title. This deep into the Empire he couldn’t avoid knowing as soon as he touched him.

He wasn’t reaching for his name, however. Mathieu went up to the door and knocked, to begin the dance of manners required for asking to speak to a member of the Sultan’s family, or so Osmanli was styled.

The downside to this, however, was that, ten minutes later, he had forgotten in large part how he got left in a sitting room alone and wasn’t sure what to do next. Borrowed manners didnt stay long in his mind once his concentration broke. Skimming his memories, he could at least remember what the servant had said: because Osmanli wasn’t in, he could wait for him wait for him to return, and of course would you like some tea.

He’d said yes, of course, as an excuse to stay, but he didn’t want to talk to Osmanli. He just wanted to see Egypt and leave. From Sir Garnet’s mind he knew that you did not generally ever  _ see _ an upper class Ottoman woman as a strange man.

That was going to be a problem.

He had two options: wait for the servant to return and ask to speak to the lady of the house specifically, as she hadnt been preferred in Osmanli’s stead or go find her. Given he did not want to be the one to start the fight, he waited.

The tea was late, and also cold when it arrived; apparently he was unwelcome. The servant nearly escaped before he could get past the formalities to ask but when he did inquire, he got a dirty look and a curt answer that she was unwell and not seeing visitors.

Dammit.

He tried to reach out more clearly to Egypt, to see if he could get a feeling for her actual mood or where she was but it felt like trying to grab water. Maybe she really was unwell, if she was so deeply asleep she wasn’t aware of anything. It would at least make it easier to leave with her if she wasn’t in any state to fight, although he might have to stay close by until he’d gotten her settled with someone trustworthy in Egypt.

Hoping that Sadik was having the same money problems as his government, Mathieu got up from the sitting room and started to make his way through the house towards his sense of Egypt. As he went, he ramped up his aura to attempt to intimidate any servants he did have into having no desire to speak to him at all.

The servants were not a problem; apparently Osmanli had reduced his household staff as he’d hoped. The layout of the house, however, was. He hit two dead ends before he realized he needed to cross the courtyard to reach the part of the house where Egypt was asleep. There, he wound his way through another few rooms – another sitting room, dining room, and so on; it appeared to be a replica of the space he’d been in before – until he found the staircase to take him up to where she was. There, at least, it was only a hallway with doors on either side until he came to the one he could feel Egypt behind.

For all she felt deeply unconscious, he knocked first anyways. Perhaps she was simply shielded by something other than sleep.

There was no answer. Mathieu tried the door and found it unlocked.

He shut it behind him once he was inside, and eyed the room with curiosity. Osmanli’s home had been richly decorated everywhere he’d been so far, but here the splendor was somehow even more obvious. The bed was curtained, the pillows and blankets silk brocade. The basin and jug on the bureau were gold or at least gold plated, as were the fixtures on the drawers. Everything in sight was expensive. Egypt herself – or himself, Mathieu wasn’t sure how much the designation of wife was a formalization of a male lover or an actual personal preference – seemed fragile, tucked into the bed.

Mathieu walked closer and frowned. It wasn’t just Egypt’s small size that made her seem small, he realized; there was a blue bruise down the side of her face, and her breathing was slow. There was a cup on the side table, and a bottle still half-full.

It only took one sniff to tell him it was laudanum; Arthur drank it frequently. He knew the smell, and its symptoms.

Her deep unconsciousness suddenly made sense. It was slowly becoming concerning.

He couldn’t leave her alone in Egypt long enough to get her household arranged. Humans would be highly alarmed if her heart suddenly stopped, depending on how much she’d taken – or been given.

Well there was no one to stop him. He swallowed his emotions – confused, upset, and now anxious, that suddenly his invasion felt justified and that was almost worse than the others all by itself – and pulled back her blankets.

He briefly, brightly, regretted it.

Egypt’s nightgown did not cover much; the finely woven cotton was sheer, even though it covered her past her knees. It meant he could see that the bruise on her face was one of several; her left arm was in a splint and sling. It almost appeared to be a generic beating, the kind of thing you might expect against a rebellious province, except for the bite marks on her shoulders and upper chest.

Arthur hadn’t mentioned Sadik and him must get along, he thought, then squashed the thought and put it out of his mind. It was easy, in this state; the British Empire  _ didn't _ care.

She needed a robe. He focused on that and went to the bureau to get her one, draped it over her front and picked her up, very very gingerly as though he thought she might still be capable of feeling pain, much less waking up. She lay bonelessly in his arms, so unconscious he had to look to see if she even appeared to still be breathing.

He hated when they died on him. He would never get used to  _ that _ part of his duties for England, so he really hoped she didn't.

Egypt, however, appeared to be fine. He closed his eyes and looked around her room, not seeing anything obvious that needed taken.

Well, he could always come back. It would be easier when it was a task he could drop if he got sick of it. He focused, easily – clearly, on his guest bedroom in Ottawa and then sharpened his focus until he couldn’t picture anything else.

That step, from Istanbul to his room, was nothing like it had been to Alexandria. There was resistance. It wasn’t like walking in mud, because mud was never higher than your shins if you could still move, but more like trying to walk through a heavy quilt that covered him from the head down.

For several seconds, he wasn’t sure he could do it. The weight was crushing, and getting heavier every second he tried to put his foot down in another part of the world.

When he did, he almost fell, the sudden passage astonishing. He sat down on the bed, to prevent that, Egypt cradled to his chest as his heart raced and his breathing didn’t want to slow.

He’d never struggled like that before. He clung, hard, to his grasp on the colonies for comfort and reassurance, needing to feel like he had that freedom still. There were few empires besides Britain right now, and he hadn’t realized he’d never faced them before. Osmanli was, ostensibly, their ally; just a paranoid one.

Very paranoid, apparently.

IIII

The less he thought about the process to settle Egypt in his home, the better.

Ultimately, he got her into a nightgown more appropriate for Ottawa, tucked her into the bed with heat, and then went out to retrieve his housekeeper to ask her to watch her for him while he answered to England. Hopefully he would be back before her condition changed, but if nothing else that housekeeper had handled his alcohol poisoning before just fine (He paid her accordingly. Help that stayed after you died messily on them and came back were more precious than gold.)

He hesitated briefly before he took the step from Ottawa to London. It was only half because of the experience leaving Istanbul. When he set his foot down this time, the entry way around him pressed against him on all sides until it slid off the aura that announced him as a piece of Arthur himself.

Even though it had been friendly to him for the past century and a half, he still breathed a sigh of relief when it retreated. Arthur’s house had... moods, very like its owner.

Unlike Egypt, he didn’t have to think to know where Arthur was, or whether he had company or not. He could’ve pointed in his direction from anywhere in the world even while blackout drunk. This deep in the colonial space, he could feel his thoughts bleeding into his own mind. 

At present Arthur was slightly agitated, at his desk in his office. There wasn’t a real sense of urgency, just… disgust? Mathieu guessed. It was hard to be sure, but the general tone typical for him. 

It also wasn't a bad mood, as he’d guessed from his welcome by Arthur's house, so he stopped in the kitchen and made them both fresh tea before he went upstairs with his report. If things had gone simply he wouldn't bother with tea, but this was going to take some explaining and he wanted something to do with his hands.

He could feel the change in Arthur as he noticed he was there and he hurried with the tray of tea and biscuits as he went upstairs. He didn't have a hand free for the office door, but he didn't need to. Arthur came and opened it for him and there was space cleared on the desk for the tray.

“I take it things did not go well?” Arthur said. 

Mathieu took a long slow breath and poured the tea before he answered. There was a giddiness to his thoughts, a high like a sip of fine wine, to being in Arthur's presence like this. It was intense, with his mind opened to the Empire like he was 

Opened to  _ Arthur _ . The experience always briefly took his breath away.

His reaction was just - emotional, forced. He told himself that every time, because there was so much of it that disgusted him. Not least of which was Arthur’s smug smile as he sat down and served them both tea, waiting for Mathieu to recover his composure. 

“I - it went fine. The Ottoman wasn’t home when I arrived. Egypt was unwell - it appears her empire was beating her - and she was drugged heavily with laudanum.” 

Arthur nodded along to his words, his mood slowly darkening. Mathieu swallowed and pushed on. 

“Given her condition needs to be monitored for the time being, I took her back to my home.”

“What!?” Arthur jerked upright and snarled at him. “Your home? Why? I don’t remember giving her to you as spoils, Matthew!”

Mathieu jerked back in his seat, immediately mortified. He ducked his head and raised an arm defensively. “I swear, I haven’t touched her! I didn’t want her to die on a strange human, that’s all! It’s not going to be permanent!”

Arthur sat back and angrily sipped his tea, watching him over the rim. It made him almost want to die, but instead he sat and drank as well, thinkingly longingly of his whiskey back home.  However, he was here, to do his job. and that meant giving in to the desperate need to please him.

“Would you rather she stay here, with you?” 

Arthur’s head flushed with - nausea? Pain, fear - then it flashed furious and Mathieu retreated again, shaking with anxiety. Arthur sneered and shook his head. “I’d rather you strangle her and dump her body in a ditch,” he snarled. 

“She’s not going to stay dead,” Mathieu answered, desperately hoping he didn’t order him to actually do it. “She’s not threat to anyone in this state. I’ll go prepare a household for her in Egypt once I leave, and she can move there after she’s conscious again.” 

“We’re not here to rescue people, she’s our property to protect. You can’t let her wind up in this state again.”

_ As if I’m at fault for it in the first place, somehow? _ Mathieu wondered, and then the guilt set in and he winced. “I know, I’m sorry. I’ll do better to keep an eye on her after this.”

“It’s not like I care if you make use of her, but she is damn well to stay in Egypt.” 

“Of course, sir.”

“If she continues to do laudanum recreationally, then it’s her own damn fault and she can wait it out alone. I don’t want her to think she can force us to wait on her, hand and foot, that way. Spoiled, stupid bastard that he is.”

Mathieu picked up his tea and drank, nodding in agreement to Arthur’s rant and feeling sick to his stomach with guilt and grief. How could he have disappointed him like this? He should have known better than to bring her back to his house. Everything mattered more than making such a lazy mistake. He could have left her with Sir Wolseley to handle, could he not have?

_ And let her get raped, as well as you? _ Mathieu swallowed hard and pushed down that treasonous little thought. He couldn’t afford to think, not here. 

All that mattered right now was Arthur.

He’d finished his tea while ranting, and Mathieu put his own down to quickly - calmly - refill Arthur’s glass, then his own. As he finished up the gesture and put back down the teapot, Arthur lightly cupped his chin to tilt his face up to his. 

Arthur looked - tired, visibly unhappy, but there was a vague smile in his eyes. Mathieu stared back, uncertain. He was never sure what he was going to do when he looked like that. There was only two other people who gave him that look, and Mathieu had no idea how Egypt had brought it on as well. With his hand on his skin, he was shivering with - grief? self-disgust, dismay - and he turned slightly to kiss Arthur’s palm, desperate to chase that emotion away.

Arthur laughed and gently dug his finger in, still a caress. “Oh, my boy. I miss you when you’re not here. You’re the only one who cares about us, or our Empire.”

Mathieu closed his eyes and raised a hand to cup his. “I don’t like to see you worry, that’s all.”

“That seems to be all your brother wants to do to me, of late.” Arthur grimaced. “Enough. I think we’re both sick of work. Come with me?”

Mathieu dropped his hand and stood, following Arthur upstairs with his head spinning from uncertainty. Arthur’s hold on him waxed and waned with how close they were to each other, and he always seemed desperate to make use of it whenever Mathieu came closest to him.

To being his.

Mathieu wasn’t going to fight him. He’d tired of the violence and pain that resulted in a long time ago, but to go back to his bedroom with him… He focused on India and Australia; Jamaica - where he’d never been, Cuba would kill him - and the Marshall Islands, Egypt and South Africa. Any colony that wasn’t  _ his _ , any that would remind him, over and over, that he was part of the Empire, that his need was to be British, that this was good and he would like it.

He remembered Arthur looking William over, when he’d first brought Australia’s new Nation home with him from a visit to check on that colony. The young Nation had still been a scared angry preteen boy, and Mathieu had sworn he could handle him himself out loud. He’d restrained it to merely introductions, then left with him.

His private promise, unspoken, was that he’d never let William set foot in the house again. So far he’d managed to keep it. He wished he could actually feel good about it.

This wasn’t helping his mental state, or maybe it had because when he shut Arthur’s bedroom door behind them, he simply started to undress. Arthur looked back over his shoulder, his own hands busy at the buttons of his vest, and laughed.

“You needn’t be so hasty to get out of it,” Arthur said. “I like you in a suit.”

“The fabric is too stiff,” Mathieu smiled back at him, shrugging out of his jacket and hanging it over the back of a chair, followed by the vest. “I suppose I’ll take it back with me this time. I don’t think it’s ruined today.”

“There’s a bloodstain by the right lapel but your housekeeper should be able to get it out.”

Mathieu grunted in acknowledgement; he hadn’t looked in a mirror since he’d picked up Egypt. He wondered when Osmanli had left that morning, that she was still bleeding, then stopped himself and looked at Arthur again. 

He was much further along undressing, but he’d been wearing less clothing, not having left his house yet that day. He was good looking, more youthful when you looked past his angry face and sharp tongue; not handsome. It wasn’t a look Mathieu liked in men, normally - he frequently disliked men with the defining trait of anger - but looking at his Empire he wanted to kneel and kiss his feet just to be close to him. 

Arthur’s hair was hopelessly messy, and his pale skin littered with paler scars. Against his skin, Mathieu felt almost in his bones that he was only white by the indulgence of his ability to cloak himself in Empire. He never had been, and never would be white enough to carry it off himself. 

Arthur stopped undressing once down to his drawers and came over to rest his hands on Mathieu’s hips and lean down to kiss him. 

It felt like being kissed by the sun, all glory and heat and godlike power. He kissed Arthur back like he could drink him down, pressing into his chest and furious at the thin linen undershirt still between them. He wanted all of his skin - all of his presence - so hard and so desperately if he’d had a knife he might have just cut off the rest of his clothes.

Arthur pulled back and just stared at his face -  _ drinking in his expression _ , Mathieu imagined, the cold thoughts at the back of his mind still intact as the rest of him panted with need. 

“Let me help you with that,” Arthur said, and Mathieu nodded too overwhelmed to speak. 

His shirt came off, then his pants and drawers together, as Arthur unlaced them with much more coordination than Mathieu had had. He kicked off the pants and Arthur pushed him towards the bed before he finished undressing himself and followed. 

“The civilized English,” Mathieu joked. “You wear too many clothes.”

“We have the patience for them,” Arthur pushed Mathieu down on his back and bent to nibble at his lip. “Perhaps I merely want to enjoy undressing you each time?”

“You enjoy dressing me up just as much,” Mathieu said. Arthur trailed his fingers down his chest and into the crease of his thigh, inches from much more sensitive flesh. Mathieu exhaled, his throat shaking, then finished, “You like it when I look like you.”

“When you dress like a barbarian, left to your own devices. Who wouldn’t enjoy finally seeing someone so beautiful in a proper package?” 

His touch burned, pleasant but so sharp he couldn’t ignore it. He stared at Arthur’s face, watching not his looks or beauty but the contemplative expression as it turned to passion and his trailing fingers closed over softer flesh still. Mathieu’s eyes shut and he dropped his head back with a loud moan, bucking his hips deeper into his grasp. 

“I wish you’d run into the Ottoman for me,” Arthur whispered. “You’re always so much more ready when you come back after a good fight.”

Mathieu grunted and slid his hand up Arthur’s hip, digging in his nails as he tried to pull him close; unwilling to answer his remarks. He simply bit his lip and nodded - of course, my Lord, of course. 

He might have said it out loud; Arthur mumbled something back and bent over him, crushing his lips with his own and straddling Mathieu’s body, his hand still hot and slightly coarse, callused, on his cock. 

He wanted to ask to touch him back, but - he recalled a knife through his hand, pinned to the headboard - and let the kiss continue, groaning with pleasure. He kept his hands on Arthur’s back, dug in his nails and and hooked his leg over Arthur’s shin instead.

No one touched Arthur without his permission. 

Finally, Arthur pulled his leg free and tucked it inside Mathieu’s, then did the same to the other and pushed his legs open, his hands vanished then returned to fuck lubed fingers inside him. Mathieu loosened his arms around his back and tried to shift, to make it easier for him. His body softened, eagerly, although his own erection was hard and bright and waiting, too, for Arthur to be inside him.

“God it’s been too long,” Arthur chuckled. “You’re so damn tight.”

“It… it will make it better for you…” Mathieu groaned and gave up and took hold of the headboard, unwilling to dig his nails into his Empire’s skin any longer for fear of injury. He could heal it, possibly before they even finished in bed, but to do him any harm made him sick to his stomach.

“It reminds me how much I miss you, between our visits.” Arthur kissed down his chest and removed his hand, wiping it off on the bedding before he placed himself and thrust his cock inside. He paused, then, and mouthed his skin, slowly feeling out his pace… Mathieu wasn’t even sure whose thoughts he was having, whose feelings it was; Arthur felt like an extension of himself and his body was just one half of a whole. 

He suspected Arthur felt the same, as he shifted and his next thrust nearly made him cum. Mathieu moaned loudly and wrapped his legs around his waist to hold them closer, felt the wood beneath his hands give and tasted blood from his lip on his teeth, his tongue; he’d bitten through his skin.

As soon as he tasted it, Arthur cupped his head and brought his mouth down to kiss his mouth and coax it open, sweeping his tongue inside to taste it too. He felt his pleasure, his ease, his delight in their closeness - in knowing everything Mathieu felt, wanted, needed; in knowing what to do with his body, and what his body was doing.

He  _ belonged  _ to Arthur, here and now, and Arthur moaned into his mouth and shuddered in place; Mathieu couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think; he could only feel, and everything touching him then was pleasure.

And then it was more than pleasure: he was everything, and then he was quiet. 

IIII

The echoes stayed with him for several minutes after. Arthur came on the tail end of his orgasm, and he didn’t pull out, not right away. They sank down to the bed in a tangle of limbs, Arthur kissing down his neck and seeking to mark in teeth and blood where he’d been. Mathieu idly released the headboard and studied his hands. Once satisfied he didn’t have too serious of splinters, sank them into Arthur’s hair, stroking him - his lover, his master, his empire - as his body faded to shivers.

“Lords, you’re beautiful,” Arthur mumbled. “I wish you would stay.”

“I have my own duties… I can’t…” He wanted to, oh how much he did in this state. Telling his Empire no ripped his heart from his chest, but his people needed him. For all he could reach out to the other colonies, they were never ‘home.’

Arthur lay his head down on his chest and sighed. He’d pulled out, at some point, but not gotten up, and seemed to be in ho hurry to do so. Mathieu stroked his hair and waited, knowing why he wasn’t moving but not sure he wanted to put it into words. The most his mind could do right now was... his Empire was lonely, and his refusal to stay was cruel and unfair.

_ Egypt is at your home passed out drugged, _ he reminded himself.  _ Your housekeeper doesn’t need to deal with that alone. She is your duty too. _

Mathieu sighed and Arthur groaned as well. “You’re working up to leave me,” he said.

“My housekeeper… I only have the one servant, I don’t want her to be alone.”

Arthur sighed and pushed himself up and off him, climbing off the bed and going to the basin to wash. Mathieu sat up awkwardly as well, shivering with cold - from Arthur, not just the chill air. Their extended intimacy was retreating, leaving him feeling lost.

_ The sun gone down, hiding its face.  _

He wasn’t sure if that thought was sincere or not.

He got up and retrieved his underclothes, undecided on if he wanted to put on the rest or not. He really did hate wearing suits, and Arthur was pulling up his guard against him, cutting off their intimacy and it’s overwhelming effects. His own feelings and needs began to assert themselves and it was not a pleasant experience.

There was a fairly reliable way to purge that, what he privately thought of as Empire hangover, even in late Spring. Especially in late Spring. With his clothes gathered, Mathieu exhaled and stepped away from England to Canada. He felt a sudden lurch - that missed step, except this time it was on purpose - and dropped, hard, into the cold water at the mouth of the Nelson River. 

The ice hadn’t left all that long ago; the brackish water was bone cold and stole his breath away. He sank, clinging to his breath and his clothes, taking several seconds to recover enough to even move as his lungs and skin burned. 

When his head was clear enough to move he swam, one armed, back to the surface, and then looked around for a shoreline, one not going away too quickly to reach. He was shivering, hard, by the time he reached it, his sodden clothes still clutched to his chest. If he lost them after saying he’d take them home with him, Arthur would flog him for the carelessness the next time he saw him.

Right before he dragged him into his bed, or possibly during it depending on his mood.

Mathieu shook off the dark thoughts, disgusted with himself for dwelling on it even still. He stepped more sedately from the banks of the Nelson River to his back door in Ottawa where he could shed his wet clothes and the last pieces of Empire from his mind.

**Author's Note:**

> Egypt was technically independent within the Ottoman Empire since 1831, but came under British "protection" in 1882 in order to secure British control of the Suez Canal. 
> 
> Sir Wolseley apparently has several memorials and so on in Canada, so it feels oddly appropriate I chose a time period when he was the British Expat Mathieu would have to deal with.
> 
> Laudanum is a combination of opium and alcohol, and often prescribed as medicine in the 19th century.
> 
> Australia was one of the latest British colonial exploits (first fleet in 1788), and some Canadians (and Canadiennes, the French citizens) were sent there as part of its function as a penal colony too. 
> 
> The Nelson River empties into the Hudson Bay through parts of Ontario, and due to the low salinity of the water it stays iced over longer than other technically oceanic bodies of water.
> 
> (I am debating adding more chapters to this, but not sure yet.)


End file.
